Media company Phoenix New Media has agreed to pay $30m for a 21% stake in Particle , the China-based creator of personalised news app developer Yidian Zixun.
Phoenix, which is also known as Ifeng, will also pay a further $27.6m to buy 13.8% of Yidian’s shares from existing investors. The transactions, added to its existing investment in Yidian, will increase its overall share of the company to 46.9%.
Yidian is a mobile app that enables users to set parameters for the news they want to view, and combines that with a proprietary algorithm that locates stories they will find interesting.
Shuang Liu, Phoenix New Media’s CEO, said: “Being the gateway of choice for news and lifestyle information for over 300 million Chinese users, our investment in Yidian will enable us bridge our proprietary content with the functionality of interest-based verticals and search engines made possible by this next generation product.
“Supported by Ifeng’s premium content and Xiaomi’s strong distribution channels, we believe that Yidian has the right resources and capabilities to lead in this new arena of mobile media consumption.”
The deal was agreed as Yidian formed a strategic partnership with an affiliate of one of its other investors, consumer electronics manufacturer Xiaomi, which will involve its app being pre-installed on any of the smartphones or tablets Xiaomi sells in China.
Phoenix had previously made two investments in the company in late 2014 that jointly gave it a 17.8% stake. Yidian has not revealed details of Xiaomi’s funding.